Introducing The Hotline Project: For Those Who Need To Talk To Someone About Their Religious Doubts

Ever since I heard about this project more than a month ago, I’ve been excited it share it with all of you. We know becoming an atheist rarely happens overnight — for many of us, it’s the result of a lot of introspection or conversations with trusted friends. But what happens when you don’t have anyone to talk to? What if you’re a church-goer who doesn’t really have any non-religious friends? What if you’re a teenager whose parents are very religious? What if you’re a pastor?

It was started by the folks at Recovering from Religion and it’ll offer a single phone number where anyone having religious doubts can call in — 24 hours a day! — to talk to a trained, trusted individual.

The Hotline will provide trained volunteers to answer a toll-free hotline and provide real time, caller-specific support to each person who contacts us, 24/7! We will offer national, regional, and local resources — a secular support network they can utilize. By providing this Hotline service, Recovering from Religion will be able to help people in their most urgent time of need.

There are some obvious questions you might have — I know I did — so let’s get those out of the way.

Are the staffers really trained? Yes, just as they would be for any other “hotline.” Recovering from Religion Executive Director Sarah Morehead tells me:

Training will be via webinar over several weeks, with small groups and interactive role play/discussions. We also plan to offer one-day specialized volunteer training workshops alongside conferences around the country… We’ll focus on basic hotline management skills, active listening skills, RR policies and RR views on religious transitions, volunteer expectations, and learning to provide real-time resources to callers, as well as attending to crisis cues such as suicide and/or domestic violence concerns, both of which would be referred to more specialized calling centers for those particular issues.

How can this service possibly be available 24 hours a day? When the program begins, volunteers will be able to sign up to cover different shifts and the system will direct callers to an anonymous staffer who is available at that time.

Will callers be persuaded to become atheists? Absolutely not, says Sarah:

Responders will absolutely NOT urge any form of belief or disbelief. In fact, our volunteers will be specifically trained to never debate callers under any circumstances.

…

Recovering From Religion is passionate about meeting people where THEY are at on the spectrum of disbelief (see below). It’s not our place to do anything but encourage exploration and discovery, and to provide a solid support structure as people reconsider the role of religion in their lives. For many, this is a long process and we will be with them every step of the way. For some, they might be taking a smaller step by exploring a more liberal church, or by finding the confidence to assert their financial independence from tithing. For others, they might work their way through various forms of increasingly self-defined religious belief, and ultimately leave religion entirely. Some may even have it all suddenly fall away in one fell swoop and be left with no idea what to do or where to turn.

Every story is the same, yet every story is unique, and our volunteers will be trained to address them and point them towards resources and support networks that meet their individual needs. This might simply be helping them find a more liberal leaning church in their area, locate books or articles that offer additional insight into their experiences, an online discussion area (like RR’s confidential online support group page), or local secular groups near them.

Can we sign up to be volunteers?! Not yet. But soon.

How can we help? They need donations. For this project to work, it can’t be done half-assed:

The biggest costs for the Hotline Project are, first and foremost, the call management software system. We’ll be using the same system used by other major crisis lines, which will allow us to have call routing (instead of a brick and mortar call center, which would be prohibitive and unrealistic to staff), quality management, transfer options in the event a call is risked out for suicide crisis, as well as collect anonymous demographic information to better train our volunteers and capture accurate data that demonstrates the efficacy of the project as a whole. The other major expenses will be volunteer recruitment and training, which will involve vetting volunteers to ensure they are a good fit for the type of work this will involve. Also we’re having our training program reviewed by independent and currently practicing psychologists in order to ensure standards of care are met and adequate quality control is in place. The final cost for the hotline will be targeted advertising outside the secular community that it is up and we are ready to help.

It’ll take a few months to get the system ready, find the volunteers, and train them before the project is open for business, but this will be incredibly worthwhile. I’ve known Sarah for a couple of years and this project is in good hands under her management.